A jury on Thursday found two former Lake in the Hills women guilty of involuntary servitude of a minor for their role in luring a 14-year-old Kansas girl into commercial sexual activity.
After two days of testimony and five hours of deliberations, the jury came back with a verdict about 4 p.m. Thursday. They found Antwanette Atkins and Kari Knox guilty of the involuntary servitude charge and not guilty of a pimping charge.
Judge Joseph Condon dismissed six counts of child pornography Wednesday, stating he did not think the photos were "lewd beyond a reasonable doubt."
Find out what's happening in Algonquin-Lake In The Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
A sentencing hearing is set for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 18 before Judge Joseph Condon. The involuntary servitude charge carries a prison sentence of between six and 30 years.
The defense argued Atkins and Knox did not know the girl’s age when she was brought to the Lake in the Hills home they were sharing with Donald Jones in late December 2009.
Find out what's happening in Algonquin-Lake In The Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Jones is accused of meeting the teen on the Internet before driving to Wichita, Kansas, to bring her back to Illinois.
When she got to the Lake in the Hills home, she allegedly was given provocative clothing to wear, given an alias, Crystal, and posed for pictures used on a website that solicits prostitution, and which billed her as a 23-year-old woman.
Jones is being tried separately and is charged with involuntary servitude of a minor, pimping and six counts of child pornography. He is due back in court Oct. 14.
In closing arguments Thursday morning, defense attorneys portrayed the teen as a hustler to the jury — a girl worldly beyond her years who knew exactly what she was getting into.
"How many 14-year-olds do you know who have 10 tattoos?" defense attorney Kim Messer, representing Atkins, asked the jury, saying the teen "did a bang-up job" of acting older than she was.
Messer also reiterated that her client never received money from the alleged sex acts of the victim, and the teen skimmed $100 off the top of one $300 fee and kept it for herself.
Knox’s defense attorney, Bill Bligh, said, "They have not proven that Kari knew that (the victim) was under the age of 17 ... if there is a culprit, who is it? It’s Donald Jones. It’s not the two women sitting here today."
Assistant State’s Attorney Sharyl Eisenstein called the defendants "seasoned pros at what they do" and said they had to know how young the victim was.
"Look at this girl — this young girl — this baby face," Eisenstein said of provocative photos of the girl the women took to post on a website. "This is (the victim) sexed up by the defendants."
Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Blackney called the actions part of an underground prostitution circle.
"We all know what this is about," he told the jury. "A hustler? She was 14 years of age. These two are the hustlers. We’ve criminalized in this state trying to make a minor a hustler."
